Today I Choose to be Soaring – How to be Soaring

Soaring isn’t just about altitude—it’s about perspective. It’s those moments when you feel lifted above the ordinary grind, when life gives you wings and you catch a glimpse of the bigger picture.

One of my soaring moments came the first time I stood on a mountaintop in Colorado.

After hours of huffing and puffing up switchbacks, calves burning, lungs reminding me I’m no longer twenty, I reached the top.

And suddenly—it was all worth it.

The View from Above

The view stretched endlessly, sky spilling into horizon, the world below looking both vast and small at once. I felt taller than my worries, lighter than my doubts, like I had risen above not just the mountain, but my own limitations.

Standing there, wind whipping my hair into chaos, legs shaking from exertion, I felt it—that soaring sensation. Not flying exactly, but elevated. Like I’d climbed out of my own life for a moment and could see it from above.

From up there, my problems looked different. Smaller, but also more connected to everything else. I could see the patterns I couldn’t see from ground level—how this struggle connected to that joy, how this path led to that view.

That’s what soaring does: it pulls you out of the details, the noise, the constant motion, and shows you a higher vantage point. It’s not about escaping life—it’s about rising above it long enough to remember how much bigger it really is.

The Physical Reality of Soaring

Soaring has a distinct physical signature:

• Chest lifting: Like your heart is literally rising in your ribcage
• Eyes widening: Taking in more than usual, seeing farther
• Breath catching: That gasp when perspective shifts
• Spine straightening: Standing taller without trying
• Arms wanting to spread: The instinct to make yourself bigger, to claim more space

On that mountain, I found myself spreading my arms wide, not for balance but from pure instinct—like I could catch the wind, like I had wings I’d forgotten about.

Soaring Without Mountains

You don’t need altitude to soar. I’ve felt it in unexpected places:

In my office, when a complex financial puzzle suddenly clicks and I see the elegant solution that was hiding in the chaos. My mind soars above the numbers and sees the story they’re telling.

At my computer, when writing flows and words come from somewhere beyond my conscious mind. Hours pass like minutes. I’m not typing; I’m channeling something higher.

In conversation, when connection transcends small talk and suddenly we’re discussing life’s big questions, souls touching across coffee cups.

Watching sunrise, ordinary Tuesday morning, coffee in hand, when the light hits just right and suddenly the mundane world reveals itself as miraculous.

During meditation (the three times I’ve successfully done it), when thoughts finally quiet and I float above my own mental chatter, seeing it for the noise it is.

The Difference Between Soaring and Escaping

I used to confuse soaring with escaping:

• Escaping runs from reality; soaring rises to see it clearly
• Escaping avoids problems; soaring gains perspective on them
• Escaping disconnects; soaring connects to something larger
• Escaping leaves you depleted; soaring leaves you energized
• Escaping is about leaving; soaring is about seeing

That day on the mountain, I wasn’t escaping my life. I was seeing it from a height that made sense of the maze I’d been stumbling through.

Creating Conditions for Soaring

Soaring can’t be forced, but it can be invited:

Seek elevated views: Literally. Tall buildings, hills, bridges. Physical height often triggers mental elevation.

Create mental space: Clear your desk, your calendar, your mind of clutter. Soaring needs runway.

Engage with big ideas: Read philosophy, watch documentaries about space, discuss life’s mysteries. Big thoughts create lift.

Move your body beyond comfort: Exercise to exhaustion sometimes breaks you through to soaring. The body’s limits reveal the spirit’s limitlessness.

Connect with art: Music that moves you, paintings that stop you, poetry that cracks you open. Beauty is an elevator to soaring.

The Unexpected Moments of Soaring

Sometimes soaring ambushes you:

Last week, sitting in traffic, NPR playing a piece about the James Webb telescope discovering ancient galaxies. Suddenly I’m not stuck on I-75; I’m floating in cosmic perspective, my traffic irritation laughably small against the backdrop of infinite space.

Or watching my grown sons laugh together at Thanksgiving, seeing not just them but the chain of generations, the miracle of family continuing, the soaring realization that I’m part of something so much bigger than my individual life.

Or that moment in hot yoga when I stop fighting the heat and suddenly I’m not suffering but surfing on sensation, soaring above discomfort into something almost transcendent.

Why We Need to Soar

At ground level, life is obstacle courses and traffic jams and bills and conflicts. Important, yes. But incomplete. We need the soaring view to remember:

• Our problems are both real and temporary
• We’re connected to everything else
• There’s beauty in the bigger pattern
• Our small lives matter in the vast scheme
• There’s always a higher perspective available

Without soaring moments, we get trapped in the maze, unable to see there’s a way through, a pattern, a purpose to the wandering.

The Return to Earth

Here’s the truth about soaring: you don’t live there all the time. You touch it in moments—through awe, accomplishment, or perspective—and those glimpses fuel you when you’re back on the ground.

After that mountain moment, I had to climb back down. Back to emails and spreadsheets and laundry and all the beautiful mundane details of life. But I carried the soaring with me—that remembered perspective, that knowledge of the view from above.

Now when I’m stuck in life’s ground-level tangles, I remember: I’ve soared before. I’ll soar again. This moment, this problem, this struggle—it’s all part of a bigger picture I can’t see from here but know exists.

Soaring as Spiritual Practice

At 61, I’ve realized soaring isn’t just nice to have—it’s necessary. It’s how we remember we’re spiritual beings having a human experience, not just humans grinding through days.

Every soaring moment is a reminder:

• You’re more than your to-do list
• You’re bigger than your fears
• You’re connected to something vast
• You have access to perspectives beyond the obvious
• You can rise above, even when you can’t escape

Small Soarings

Not every soaring needs to be mountaintop dramatic. Small soarings count:

• The moment in meditation when thoughts finally stop
• The paragraph you write that comes from somewhere beyond you
• The solution that appears after you stop forcing it
• The joke that lifts a heavy moment
• The memory that puts current struggle in perspective
• The gratitude that suddenly overwhelms you for no reason

Each small soaring strengthens your wings for bigger flights.

The Community of Soaring

Some soaring happens alone—on mountaintops, in meditation, in moments of solitary awe. But some soaring needs others:

The conversation that lifts both participants. The shared experience that elevates everyone present. The collective moment when a group transcends its individual parts and soars together.

Last month, at a wedding, watching two families become one, everyone in the room rose together—not physically, but spiritually. We all soared on the couple’s joy, lifted by love we were witnessing. That’s communal soaring—when one person’s elevation lifts everyone.

Choosing to Soar

That mountain in Colorado taught me something: soaring is partly choice. Yes, I had to climb the mountain. But I also had to choose to receive the view, to let it lift me, to allow the soaring instead of focusing on my burning legs or racing heart.

Every day offers invitations to soar—sunrises, insights, connections, beauty. But we have to choose to accept the invitation, to stop looking down long enough to look up, to let ourselves be lifted.

Your Invitation to Soar

Whatever ground-level struggle you’re in right now, remember: there’s always a higher view available. You might need to climb to reach it. You might need to wait for it. You might need to create space for it.

But soaring is always possible. In big moments and small. Through effort or grace. Alone or together.

Find what lifts you—literally or figuratively. Seek the mountaintops in your life, whether they’re actual peaks or moments of transcendence in ordinary Tuesday afternoons. Let yourself rise above the immediate, the urgent, the loud.

Remember that you’re capable of heights you forget you can reach. That above the fog of daily life, there’s clarity. Above the struggle, there’s perspective. Above the small self, there’s the soaring self that sees it all as part of something magnificent.

You don’t have to stay up there. Just visit. Just remember. Just let yourself soar long enough to remember what you look like from above—small but significant, struggling but ascending, human but capable of flight.

That’s the gift of soaring: it shows you who you are when you rise above who you think you are.